Can’t let January slip away without noting that it was three years ago this month that Pensito Review was launched. Our servers say we’ve had more than 5.8 million visitors, who have viewed 12.3 million of our pages, since then.
Thanks to all of you.
At the end of the debate at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood tonight, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama if they would agree to either a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket this year. Transcript to come, but here’s a rough version:
Obama started first and gave a moderately wordy response that ended with, “Hillary would be on anyone’s short list,” and then went on to talk about wanting the very best people in his administration.
Blitzer: “So that’s a yes?”
Obama did not say no. Blitzer tossed the question to Clinton, who said, “I agree with what Barack just said.”
Blitzer: So that’s a yes?”
Clinton did not say no.
Update Feb. 1: Here is CNN’s transcript:
Now that the 2008 presidential campaign has narrowed to four candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and Mitt Romney — one thing is clear: The next president of the United States will be a liberal.
It may seem counterintuitive to younger people but, back in the day, liberal Republicans were relatively common, and many of them were quite powerful: Pres. Teddy Roosevelt, Vice Pres. Nelson Rockefeller, New York City Mayor John Lindsey and Michigan Gov. George Romney (father of Mitt), to name a few.
In the Reagan era there was a concerted effort to reframe the word “liberal” to give it a negative connotation — the Republicans’ sneering construct of the “liberal media” was a product of this effort that is still with us today. As a degree on the scale of political ideology, “liberal” was replaced by “moderate” — “liberal Republicans” became “moderate Republicans.” Conversely, in order to make “conservative” a purely Republican association, the media were also complicit in Republicans’ rebranding of “conservative Democrats” as “moderate Democrats.” The result today is that in the public mind, only Republicans are “conservatives,” and only Democrats are “liberals.”
In fact, branding and framing aside, “liberal,” “moderate” and “conservative” are simply degrees on the ideological scale. Dennis Kucinich is more liberal than Hillary Clinton who is more liberal than Joe Lieberman who is more liberal than McCain who is more liberal than Tom DeLay, and vice versa.
While most people on the left would not consider either McCain or Romney to be liberals, doctrinaire conservatives — who are heavily invested in maintaining “liberal” as a slur — do.
In particular, leading rightwing propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity feel about McCain the way that liberals feel about Sen. Joe Lieberman. They hate him:
The biggest effect of Rudolph Giuliani’s dropping out of the presidential race yesterday may be on the future ratings of the Fox News Channel, which had been openly promoting his candidacy. Much of FNC’s success stems from its unparalleled access to the Bush political shop. By anointing Giuliani, the channel hoped to extend its role as the White House propaganda outlet for at least four more years.
But it is not to be. In fact, FNC’s ratings have taken a hit during this campaign season, in part because a campaign by liberal bloggers to disencourage Democratic candidates from debating on Fox — a move that has spotlighted Fox’s role as a tool of the Republican Party.
A lot of us have been watching Keith Olbermann anchoring election coverage on MSNBC, but CNN has had the biggest audiences this season.
Eric Boehlert, writing at Media Matters:
Here’s the spin CNN president Jonathan Klein put out following its New Hampshire ratings win: “There’s a freshness and exuberance to our coverage that the others just aren’t matching. … Fox almost seems downright despondent in their coverage.”
So I’m not the only one who feels like Fox News coverage, especially of the Republican field, often feels like a televised wake. Or maybe that’s just been Fox News’ collective, subconscious mourning of the Giuliani campaign.
After all, Sean Hannity serves as Fox News’ official ambassador to the Giuliani campaign; a campaign that Ailes and Fox News were hoping to ride back into the White House. Yet despite showering Giuliani with all kinds of laudatory coverage, both Hannity and Ailes have been powerless, as they’ve watched Giuliani’s rudderless campaign go nowhere for months.
Even an all-out Fox News marketing blitz to label Giuliani “America’s Mayor” never got traction. In fact, it ranked right up there with the launch of New Coke, in terms of branding success.
Media Matters put together the video above that shows how brazenly Fox News rolled out its “America’s Mayor” marketing campaign. There could be no better example of the lie that Fox News has anything more than a semblance of journalistic integrity.
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
